No Newt surprises at CPAC

Newt Gingrich continued to portray his candidacy as a threat to the establishment in a Friday afternoon speech to the influential CPAC conference.

But for all the vim and vigor, Gingrich’s words were largely a repeat of his stump performance on the campaign trail. Gingrich said that Washington and Wall Street have “piled on top of me.”

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“All of you have seen them say things that are just profoundly false, and there’s a good reason that they’re doing it,” he said. “This campaign is a mortal threat to their grip on the establishment, because we intend to change Washington, not accommodate it.”

“For the Republican establishment, managing the decay is preferable to changing the trajectory, because changing the trajectory requires real fights and requires a real willingness to roll up sleeves and actually take on the left,” he said.

The ex-House speaker stressed the big ideas — on courts, Obamacare and the Keystone pipeline — that typically hit the right note with conservatives. But after badly losing three states this week to Rick Santorum, the ex-speaker may have missed an opportunity to excite a powerful audience, generating buzz that could help him mount another comeback.

While Gingrich’s speech — in which he was introduced by his wife, Callista, who is typically a silent if steady presence at her husband’s side —was far from a moment that would alter the campaign’s narrative. He ticked off a list of points that he typically makes in his stump speeches.

On immigration, Gingrich suggested that the federal government “today cannot find 11 million illegal immigrants, even if they’re sitting still.” He drew raucous applause from the crowd for calling for an “executive order to move the State Department to put the embassy in Jerusalem as of that day.”

He also said that, if he as the Republican nominee defeats President Barack Obama in the general election, that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have a partner on the Keystone XL pipeline.

“My message to Prime Minister Harper: You do not need a partnership with the Chinese. If you give us a few months…when we beat Obama on election night, we will approve it on Jan. 20,” he declared.

On the topic of energy, Gingrich also pledged to abolish the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, saying the energy department has been “ a total failure since it was founded.”

Instead, Gingrich wants an Environmental Solutions Agency “made up of new people and the No. 1 requirement should be common sense.”